On election night and the following day, the best bet seemed to be that Labor would emerge with between 86 and 88 seats. After that, Labor watched leads disappear in one seat after another. Liberal candidates took the lead in McEwen and La Trobe on the Monday after polling day, followed by Dickson and Swan on Tuesday, Herbert on Friday and Bowman on Wednesday of this week. Corangamite, Flynn and Robertson were also on the critical list at various stages after looking secure for Labor on election night: Robertson arguably still remains there. In Solomon, Labor’s Damian Hale watched nervously as his 860-vote lead on booth votes was whittled down to 89 on Wednesday, before he was saved by a late rally yesterday that widened the gap to 194. The entirely one-way nature of this traffic raises the question of what has happened and why. Here at least I will limit myself to the first half of the equation.
The first table shows the size of the swings to Labor for each type of vote in all seats which look to have margins of less than 1 per cent, barring the new seat of Flynn where any swing calculations would be hypothetical (an unfortunate omission as it would have cut the Labor swing on postals still further). Provisionals are excepted because too many of them are still to be counted, and they are few in number in any case. The outstanding feature is the Coalition’s strong performance on postal votes, which cost Labor dearly in McEwen, Dickson, Herbert and La Trobe. I read one newspaper report (I can’t remember where) suggesting this was because most postal votes were cast before the Lindsay pamphlet scandal broke, but the pattern would surely have been reflected in pre-polls if this was the case.
| Ordinary | Absent | Pre-Poll | Postal | Total | |
| Corangamite | 6.43 | 7.42 | 6.20 | 5.00 | 6.10 |
| Solomon | 3.06 | 1.87 | 4.77 | 2.88 | 3.00 |
| Robertson | 7.35 | 7.00 | 6.51 | 6.14 | 7.06 |
| McEwen | 6.19 | 9.44 | 8.78 | 4.21 | 6.38 |
| Bowman | 9.17 | 8.34 | 9.95 | 9.36 | 9.09 |
| Dickson | 9.30 | 8.69 | 8.07 | 6.13 | 8.99 |
| Herbert | 6.18 | 2.41 | 8.21 | 1.86 | 5.92 |
| Swan | -0.08 | -2.81 | 1.21 | 0.61 | -0.32 |
| La Trobe | 5.78 | 6.20 | 6.05 | 0.58 | 5.31 |
| Macarthur | 11.04 | 8.63 | 8.51 | 11.29 | 10.58 |
| TOTAL | 6.65 | 6.15 | 6.79 | 4.57 | 6.39 |
The second table shows the number of votes cast for each type over the past three elections. Here as elsewhere it must be remembered that a small number of 2007 votes still remain to be counted. It can be seen that this election has maintained a trend of sharply increasing numbers of postal votes, exacerbating the impact of the Coalition’s strong performance, along with the more neutral pre-polls.
| 2007 | 2004 | 2001 | ||
| Provisional | 167,167 1.32 |
180,878 1.46 |
165,238 1.37 |
|
| Absent | 856,407 6.75 |
853,571 6.91 |
851,945 7.07 |
|
| Pre-Poll | 1,105,948 8.72 |
754,098 6.10 |
610,107 5.06 |
|
| Postal | 820,946 6.47 |
660,330 5.34 |
516,458 4.28 |
|
| Turnout | 12,681,332 92.94 |
12,354,983 94.32 |
12,054,664 94.85 |
The final point to note is how lucky the Coalition has been. Present indications suggest it will win five of seven seats determined by margins of less than 0.3 per cent. Assuming no further changes, the bottom end of the Mackerras pendulum will look as follows:
| Corangamite | 0.8 | ||
| 0.7 | Macarthur | ||
| 0.5 | La Trobe | ||
| Flynn | 0.3 | ||
| Solomon | 0.2 | 0.2 | Swan Herbert |
| Robertson | 0.1 | 0.1 | Dickson |
| 0.0 | Bowman McEwen |
Elsewhere, the chances of a National Party boilover in O’Connor have been reduced as the slowly progressing late count has widened the gap between Labor and the Nationals from 2.08 per cent to 2.70 per cent. It will take an extremely high level of obedience to the how-to-vote card from Greens voters if that gap is to be closed, which seems an unlikely prospect in a sparsely populated electorate where the party would have had a hard time finding volunteers to cover each of the booths. Any vague chance that independent Gavin Priestley might win Calare has probably been laid to rest by late counting which has increased Nationals candidate John Cobb (formerly member for Parkes) from 47.71 per cent to 48.47 per cent, close enough to an absolute majority that the question of who comes second out of Priestley and Labor is probably academic. In the Victorian Senate, the Greens’ hopes rested on what would have been an out-of-character boost from declaration votes, which have in fact reduced their vote from 10.1 per cent to 9.7 per cent. The Labor vote has also faded enough that third Liberal candidate Scott Ryan has overtaken Labor’s number three David Feeney, so that Ryan looks likely to take the fifth seat and Feeney the sixth. Greens candidate Richard di Natale is 1.67 per cent behind Feeney after preferences CORRECTION: I wasn’t factoring in the Liberal surplus, which actually makes the gap more like 0.9 per cent.
UPDATE: One other thing – it is clear that dramatically fewer provisional votes are being allowed through this year. In 2004, any given electorate ended up with about 400 to 600 provisional votes counted. This time it’s more like 100 to 200. I suspect the answer to this mystery lies somewhere in the Electoral and Referendum (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Act. Can any wise heads out there point me in the right direction?
UPDATE 2: Comments respondents note that provisional voters must now show photo ID either at the booth or by emailing or faxing a copy to the AEC in the following week. Peter Brent: “Presumably the number of people who took ID to the AEC in the next week was about zero”. Grace Pettigrew: “Many voters who are likely to need a provisional vote do not carry ID around with them (aboriginal voters, the homeless, for example) are also most likely not to vote for the Coalition”. Adam Carr also takes issue with my description of O’Connor as “sparsely populated”: I would argue that this is sort of accurate, but Carr says the real point is that O’Connor is “the most agricultural seat in Australia, where most people live in or near small farming towns”, and consequently has “more booths than any other seat”.
627 Comments
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William, O’Connor is not “sparsely populated.” Compared to Kalgoorlie, it is quite densely populated. The point about O’Connor is not that it has huge uninhabited areas, but that it is the most agricultural seat in Australia, where most people live in or near small farming towns. It therefore has more booths than any other seat, 151 of them. This must stretch the ability of the Greens to have HTV workers at every booth all day. If the 10-hour voting day is broken into five 2-hour shifts (which is what Labor does), that means 755 people are needed to cover every booth. If the Greens follow Labor’s practice of always having two people on every booth, that means 1,510 people. The real number will be less because many booth volunteers work all day, and I doubt the Greens can maintain two people per booth, but it will still be at least 500. I very much doubt the Greens have 500 active supporters in O’Connor, and therefore some of the smaller booths will have been left unattended. This will result in a leakage of Green prefs to Labor, since Green voters won’t preference the Nats unless told to by their HTV (and even then some won’t).
Antony Green,
Your efforts to give us the good oil on your system in this blog is yet another prime example why we must insist on a fully resourced and totally independent ABC.
On this issue, thanks Pancho for the link to George Miller’s plea for enhancement of of the ABC. Last night the 7 pm ABC News suffered its umpteenth technical glitch this year, so the impact on service delivery is not confined to such problems during the election night broadcast, which I watched from start to finish.
EXCELLENT INFO WILLIAM , thank you
The Questions are:
a/ do postal votes of their very “impersonal nature” favor incumbants ?
b/ IF SO , then if the extra 1.13% of the TOTAL vote going to postals vs. the 2004
election HAD INSTEAD been cast as “ordinary votes” would the voter voted the
same way ?
c/ As the postal vote has increased by 50% from 2001 4.28% to now 6.47%,
what is the cause ?? (have the LCP chased block votes in retirement homes etc
PS/ the increased provisional vote rejection rate I believe is related to the shorter time between the calling of the election & NEW voter registration. alot of young voters may have registered by mail but unwittingly missed the cut off point
Sean @ 36
Labor won a majority govt at the last legislative election here in the ACT. I could be wrong, but i think this might have been the first time since self-govt that someone had won a majority govt.
Since then, they’ve released an unpopular education policy and generally been fairly useless. Given this, i’d suggest they probably will hold on to power, but i think it will be thanks to the Greens support in the assembly, rather than as an outright majority.
Im hurt deem down inside that none of you people talking about state governments mentioned the Tasmanian government. You even mentioned N.T lol. Anyway i can not see the Tasmanian Labor government returned. In my opinion they come only second to N.S.W for standards of governance and the opposition is not “completley” hopless. In my opinion the only uncertainty will be whether the liberals win outright or have to from a minority government.
plz no tassie jokes
Antony (@10.26), doesn’t a 31% chance in one seat and a 23% chance in the other equate to a 47% chance of winning at least 1? 53% chance of zero, 40% 1 and 7% 2??
Therefore, rounded, should be 83 seats?
Scotty #55,
But why not? They’re so easy – and so much fun!
“a 47% chance of winning at least 1? 53% chance of zero, 40% 1 and 7% 2??”
So expected number of seats = 0.5313 x 0 + 0.3974 x 1 + 0.0713 x 2 = 0.54 seats
I would support the Tasmanian Liberals if they would push for an independent Tasmanian republic. Then we wouldn’t have to put up with weird wackiness (of the Unions for Howard or Mersey Hopsital type) every election.
53 -
I think you’re right in saying the present ACT Labor government is the first majority government in its history. Given how popular the Greens and Labor are federally in the ACT at present, you’d have to think Liberals did not have much of a chance in the coming election.
54 -
From the sounds of it, the state Labor government in Tasmania is pretty shocking, but they just don’t have a good opposition. And I doubt the Greens would side with the Liberals to form a minority government.
As for Nantucket Sleighride – I was hoping to hear Antony say the magic words too. But the reality was that it wasn’t a sleighride kind of result. The win to Labor was modest and was certainly no landslide (though I admit that here in Qld the fall of Dawson and Longman had a wonderful Nantucket feel to it). Next time let’s hope Antony gets to utter the words when Labor is returned!
22
centaur_007 Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Hi centaur.
CLP hold 6 of the 24 seats in the current NT HoA. No credible leadership, no policies of note and a dwindling support base in Darwin. Alice Springs is their stronghold these days.
ALP to win the next 2 at least.
Bowman settled.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/bowman-mp-back-from-the-brink/2007/12/07/1196812976664.html
61 -
Actually, the CLP only hold four seats in the NT Legislative Assembly.
Now that Bowman has been won by Laming I think that Queensland Labor need to take a close look at how both the State and Federal campaigns have been run in the Redland Bay area. Something just isn’t quite working.
Anthony Green says:
In seats with few permanent postal voters, there is a tendency for postal votes to work in favor of the sitting member, which is why in all those close seats, mostly held by the Coalition, they tend to favor the Coalition.
Ron says , Anthony has supplied the answer !
The LCP clearly worked hard over time
What we do not know is if the 50% postal increase since 2001 election
is due to the LCP Government resources concentrated to increase
the NUMBER of registered postal voters !!
(thereby increasing the LCP 2PP vote !)
Centaur_007 – Labor should hold State WA without difficulty at the next State election. Most of Labor’s problems revolve around Brian Burke – ex Premier, jail bird, and lobbiest. The Liberals have their equivalent in Ray O’Connor – ex Premier and jail bird, and Noel Crichton Browne – ex Liberal Senator and lobbiest. The Eastern MSM tends to concentrate on Burke alone, but WA votors are well aware of NCB and his activities.
The Labor Government have finally been able to enact legislation that creates one vote one value, this effectively transfers seats from conservative rural areas to urban areas. Soon we will see the mother of all cat fights when the Liberals start to squabble over pre-selections in the reduced number of easier to win rural seats. In addition, the Nationals refuse to join in coalition with the Liberals and they will also be engaged in the same cat fight for the reduced number of seats.
For any who believe that Rudd Labor was given a free ride by the press, read the attached scathing review of the Murdoch press less than balanced reporting:
http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/comment_results.chtml?filename_num=183199
wayaway @ 55.
No, it is 0.31 + 0.23 = 0.54 which rounds to 1. The Liberal probabilities add to 1.46 which also rounds to 1. That’s why the precition bobbed between 83 and 84 seats. Everytime new votes came in, you got slightly different probabilites which rounded up or down a whole number.
Geoff Robinson, I had a half day yesterday plowing through the 1927 SMH’s trying to follow the entrails of the end of Jack Lang’s first government, followed by another half day trying to understand the pre-selections for the 1930 NSW election. Thankfully I had your 1930 study as a guide, though it has proved frustrating as you used the one reference per paragraph footnoting method.
I note you used the Country Party’s vast archive of central council minutes in your study. I’ll give you a call at some point about that, and also sources on the UAP.
Thanks for that guys, probability never my strong point
In probability terms there’s a 53% of 83 (on those figures), so thought you may predict that way, but I understand your calcs.
Cheers.
No, there’s a more than 99% chance of 83 seats. The probabilities indicated the last two seats would divide 0.54 to Labor and 1.46 to Coalition, but the rounding made this 1:1. I didn’t put a probability of it being 84.
Apparently the Coalition will need to win 9 seats to reclaim Government from these impostors next time around. At the rate Krudd is falling apart, it’s practically a done deal.
Why do the coalition have to continually use cricket anologies? I heard it yesterday and throughout the campaign. don’t they know that soccer is the no 1 sport nowm and cricket might come in a distant 4th?
Sorry taswegians, i thought i didn’t know but i do Lennon is the biggest loser that the labor party has evere had I suspect. I hate him too. Bob brown should move into state politics and take over.
Okay so we got the icing on the cake with Howard losing his seat, and now I want the cherry on top. Downer going to jail. Lets open up the AWB rort and prosecute that creature. I can just see him behind bars crying, holding onto his teddy and asking for his mummy.
FG 67, thanks for great link. A very incisive account of the Murdoch press’s politics.
A couple of nice headlines at the ABC’s website: “Telstra rejects Govt broadband plan” and “Mortgage rates to head past 9pc: economist”. Let the good times roll!
centaur – unless I heard incorrectly, commedian-in-chief Nelson referred yesterday to ‘throwing wides’. He’s not gonna win Qld back in a hurry with behaviour like that…
At 53: “Labor won a majority govt at the last legislative election here in the ACT….Since then, they’ve released an unpopular education policy and generally been fairly useless. Given this, i’d suggest they probably will hold on to power, but i think it will be thanks to the Greens support in the assembly, rather than as an outright majority.
Really, Yo ho ho, the opposition Liberal Party in Canberra is a standing joke, and has been for years now. Its constant leadership changes, internal squabbling and ridiculous grandstanding are probably worse than the Queensland Liberals. They have no chance of winning the next election on present indications.
By contrast, the Stanhope Government might have gone through a bad patch when it bit the bullet and closed some small schools for budgetry reasons, but the heat has now passed, and there is little to suggest that they won’t be returned in their own right again. Stanhope has delivered serial budgetary surpluses, built a major highway and a prison, housing supply cannot keep up with demand, and the cranes are rising high over the city. Stanhope is also popular in Canberra for delivering an ACT Bill of Rights and his repeated attempts to legalise gay unions…
Useless? Depends on your point of view.
apres @ 73 – the APO site is worth bookmarking. It covers all things in the political and social policy world.
Antony Green Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
No, there’s a more than 99% chance of 83 seats. The probabilities indicated the last two seats would divide 0.54 to Labor and 1.46 to Coalition, but the rounding made this 1:1. I didn’t put a probability of it being 84.
Um, ok – let’s just agree the Coalition is in big trouble…
Grace @ 73
Oh, i agree wholeheartedly agree that the Libs in Canberra are more than useless. To be honest, i think Bill Stefaniak is leader but the fact i’m not sure (and i should really know) cannot be a good omen for them.
In regards to the schools policy i actually thought the ALP were doing the right thing. There is a real need for consolidation of public schools in Canberra, especially at a primary level. The massive increase in construction around the city is noteable and Stanhope has been relatively successful as a leader. The useless comment was a throwaway line i agree and i apologise.
However, i stand my point that i don’t think the ALP will hold majority govt in the next assembly. I think the Greens will increase their vote as many ALP votes may move there because the schools policy was sold so poorly and was very unpopular.
I also think it is worth noting (as i did) that the 2004 election was the first time a majority govt has been elected. Its entirely possibly that this represents a ‘high water mark’ for the ALP in Canberra, and contibutes to my belief that the ALP will not win the majority again in the next assembly.
I still think there are votes to be had by getting the AEC to do something about reducing informals. Either a long term education program and/or at the booth.
Or is the Libs leader in the ACT Jacqui Burke?
Anyone know why the provisionals in Bowman are taking so long to count, or to appear on the website? (Not that I’m expecting anything, just curious
Also does it seem unusual that the ALP looks likely to get a majority of each of the Ordinary, Absent, Provisional and Postal votes, but lose the election on the strenght of the Pre-polls? Just a quirk I guess.
Re #54, that’s pretty much what a very large number of people said before the 2006 Tassie state election, and look what happened; Lennon almost increased his majority!
At the moment if there was a state election in Tassie there would be a massive swing to the Greens over the pulp mill, but as it would occur mainly in Bass (where they scraped in by 136 votes last time) and Lyons (where they won comfortably but not with a hell of a lot to spare) it might not even deliver them one extra seat. Whether there would be any movement between the major parties is hard to say. The Libs have a new leader, sure, and that should make some difference, but they’re still the same old bunch. The electorate had a fair idea what Lennon was like and still re-elected him.
By 2010 I’d be surprised if the mill is still such a major issue, one way or the other.
Would be nice to get some Tassie state level polling sometime soon, there hasn’t been any for quite a while.
I don’t think we can assume that high postal votes means there is some fraud unless something else is changing disproportionately as well. Lets assume teh percentage of people who don’t vote is roughly constant. Then if postal votes go up, votes on the day should go down. The question is, does the icnrease in postal votes “balance up” relative to the number of votes made on the day, and the normal rate of non-voting?
@ 12 Will Says:
People like to pre-poll. It’s generally quicker than having to hang around in a queue on polling day with the kids whining or anxious to get to sport or be taken to their shift at Maccas etc. etc..
No parking issues and generally very few people thrusting their HTVs at you.
I know people who will never vote on polling day again because of the convenience and are happy to slightly perjure themselves on the declaration you have to sighn at the pre-poll office counter.
Laming is ahead by 102 votes in Bowman we’ll have 65 after all sweet!
HURRAY for Andrew Hip Hip HURRAY!
Glen, I’ve a feeling that in about 3 years 65 seats will look like the good old days.
Glen: Andrew Lamming is a useless tool, but whatever makes you happy LOL
As you’re so joyful about it I hope you’re blessed with many election results like this one, Glen!
Anthony, the one footnote per paragraph was imposed on me it was not my choice. I have draft versions of the 1930 and 1932 monographs with many more footnotes. The Country Party records are impressive. Email me directly for more info at geoffr@deakin.edu.au.
Glen, enjoy the 65 as its the most your side will have for quite a long while…
FG such a Ruddslide wasn’t it 83 seats compared to the 90+ most of you were predicting LOL!
Progressive since you are biased i will take your views on the Member for Bowman with a grain of salt, tough bickies that’s one less seat for KR in QLD
I’m not joyful at the election result Jude and i never said i was for your information but i am happy that Andrew won
To borrow a phrase from a left wing hardnut who posts on pollbludger, Jason Young suffer in your jocks LOL!
Glen has to take what little crumbs of consolation he can find. How you can be proud of having idiots like Andrew Lamming, Peter Lindsay and Jason Wood on your side of politics is beyond me, but I’m not a Liberal LOL
Glen, even you’d admit that if it wasn’t for some rorting of postal votes, your lot would be in even worse shape.
And as the vote count progresses, Labor’s primary just keeps dropping. Now it’s at a measly 43.4%!
Glen,
Old Australian saying: “Look at the scoreboard.”
Glen, as I’ve said elsewhere, it was no landslide (and my prediction was for 85 seats to Labor). It was a significant swing but a modest win and one that will keep Labor on its toes. Unfortunately my fear is that Rudd will play it very conservatively so as not to threaten his very small margin. I also think that the Conservative side of politics needs to do a complete rethink and the loss wasn’t substantial enough to force them to do so.
If you want to talk about deadbeat MPs they aren’t just on our side of politics.
Look at the dead beats for the ALP Progressive, Jodie Campbell, Shayne Neumann, Kerry Rea, Sid Sidebottom, Darren Cheeseman, James Bidgood, Brett Raguse, Sharryn Jackson, Jim Turnour, Jon Sullivan, Tony Zappia, and last but not least Belinda Neal!
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